Officer Rodney Johnson |
WASHINGTON – Charged with molesting a 12-year-old girl, Juan Leonardo Qunitero had been deported back to Mexico in 1999 as an illegal alien. Nevertheless, last week, he was back in the U.S., living comfortably in a city that prohibited police from asking anyone about their immigration status.
Rodney Johnson was a 12-year veteran on the Houston police force. Married with five children, he was big, kind-hearted and unafraid of working the toughest gang beats or late-night shifts.
On Thursday, Sept. 21, around 5:30 p.m., he pulled over a white Ford pickup driving 50 mph in a 30 mph zone in what should have been a routine traffic stop. The driver, Quintero, had neither a driver’s license nor any other identification so, after a pat down, Johnson handcuffed him and placed him in the back of his patrol car. But Johnson missed the gun in Quintero’s waistband. The prisoner pulled it out and fired four times at Johnson at close range.
When Johnson was laid to rest this week after his execution-style murder he joined a growing list of law enforcers gunned down by foreign criminals. Meanwhile, in Florida, a sheriff’s deputy was killed and another shot in the leg yesterday after they pursued a motorist who ran away from a traffic stop.
Deputy Vernon Matthew “Matt” Williams and his K-9 unit were shot dead, officials said. Deputy Doug Speirs was shot in the leg but was expected to recover. Polk County sheriff’s deputies early today said they shot and killed a suspect, described as a black man with a Jamaican accent with dreadlocks.
Though no government agency in the U.S. – not the FBI nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement – tracks violent crimes by illegal aliens, even murders of police officers, a search by WND of news reports in the last three years shows law enforcement personnel are hardly immune to deadly carnage wrought by untracked, undocumented armed predators inside the country.
Less than a year ago, Nov. 12, 2005, Dallas police officer Brian Jackson met the same fate.
It seems Juan Lizcano, an illegal alien who worked as a gardener, had a few too many drinks that Saturday evening before heading to the home of Marta Cruz, according to a witness who accompanied him.
Again, police responded early Sunday morning to a domestic disturbance call at Cruz’s home and were told that Lizcano had threatened his ex-girlfriend and fired a handgun inside the house. He was gone by the time officers arrived.
About 45 minutes later, officers were notified that Lizcano had returned to the home. Officers pursued him on foot as the suspect jumped over fences and ran through yards.
Officer Jackson died of a wound to his right underarm, near his protective vest, suffered in a gunfight with Lizcano. He and his wife, JoAnn, a respiratory therapist, had been married less than four months.
In Denver, Raul Gomez-Garcia, another illegal alien charged with shooting two police officers at a crowded party where both the gunmen’s wife and 2-year-old daughter were seated, was convicted last week.
Gomez-Garcia, 21, faced trial in Denver District Court for second-degree murder of Denver police officer Donald “Donnie” Young and attempted first-degree murder of Detective Jack Bishop. The two officers were shot in the back May 8, 2005, as they worked security at an invitation-only baptismal party.
The officers had turned Gomez-Garcia away from the party. He returned later, intent on shooting the two officers.
Gomez-Garcia has almost no education, is illiterate and explained to investigators that he had carried a loaded gun since he was 13 years old. He came to the United States when he was 8 and lived in south central Los Angeles.
Perhaps one of the most dramatic stories of a police officer being shot by an illegal alien is the case of shooting Arizona sheriff’s deputy Sean Pearce, an 11-year veteran of the force who served a search warrant Dec. 16, 2004, at a Mesa trailer home.
Hiding behind a Christmas tree inside was Jorge Luis Guerra Vargas, a 22-year-old illegal alien who opened fire on Pearce.
Ironically, at the time of the shooting, Pearce’s father, Russell, an Arizona legislator, was in Washington giving a speech about illegal immigration at the Brookings Institution when he got the message to call home. His wife, he knew, “wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important. It had to do with the children.” Pearce excused himself from the podium and found a phone to hear the tragic news.
A WND investigation of local news reports found dozens more cases of police officers slain by illegal aliens. They include:
Deputy Brandon Winfield |
- Deputy Brandon “Brandy” Winfield, 29, of the Marion County, Ohio, sheriff’s department, was murdered Oct. 17, 2004. Winfield was on routine patrol when he stopped to assist what he thought was a stranded motorist. Winfield later was found shot in the head in his vehicle, which had hit a guard rail and flipped into a ravine. Both of those charges in the crime were illegal aliens.
- Detective Hugo Arango, 24, of the Doroville, Ga., police department, was murdered May 13, 2000. Arango was shot and killed after having been flagged down by a club patron who indicated that some men had been breaking into cars outside of a nightclub. Detective Arango located three suspects and detained them. As he searched for weapons, Bautista Ramirez, an illegal alien from Mexico, shot Arango four times. The first shot took off one of his fingers, the second went through his thigh. As Arango lay on the ground helpless, Ramirez intentionally fired one round through Arango’s badge, and then executed him with a shot to his head that severed his brain stem.
- National Park Service ranger Kristopher “Kriss” Eggle, 28, was murdered Aug. 9, 2002. Ranger Eggle was shot and killed in the line of duty at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument while pursuing members of a drug cartel hit squad which fled into the U.S. after committing a string of murders in Mexico.
Deputy Saul Gallegos |
- Deputy Saul Gallegos, 35, of the Chelan County, Wash., sheriff’s department was murdered June 26, 2003. Gallegos was shot and killed after stopping a vehicle in a routine traffic stop. Jose Sanchez-Guillen, 22, who had been deported three times to Mexico, was found guilty of aggravated first-degree murder.
Deputy Sheriff David March |
- Deputy Sheriff David March, 33, of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department, was murdered April 29, 2002. March was on routine patrol when he made a traffic stop. The driver, Armando Garcia, shot March in the chest and the head – execution style. Garcia had been deported three times, had a long history of drug charges, violent crimes and weapons charges. The illegal alien from Mexico was already wanted for two attempted murders.
- Officer Tony Zeppetella, 27, of the Oceanside, Calif., police department, was murdered June 13, 2003. Zeppetella stopped Adrien George Camacho for a traffic violation. Camacho pulled out a gun and shot the officer. Camacho then pistol-whipped the injured officer before shooting him again, killing him with the officer’s own gun. Camacho is an illegal alien and gang member from Mexico with a criminal history that includes five previous felony convictions and several deportations.
- A Huntsville, Ala., police officer, Daniel Howard Golden, 27, was shot multiple times by Benito Albarran, 31, an illegal immigrant in August 2005.
While no government agencies specifically track crimes by illegal aliens, there have been some efforts to quantify the loss. Last December, Mac Johnson set out to investigate the number of homicides perpetrated by illegal aliens. Since the federal government would not provide any useful information, he contacted all 50 statehouses. Three months later, he had fewer than a dozen responses. Only one state, Vermont, provided any useful information.
He then set out to statistically estimate the number of murders by illegal aliens based on available crime data and conservative estimates of the actually number of illegal aliens in the country – which, of course, nobody really knows.
He found that between 1,806 and 2,510 people in the U.S. are murdered annually by illegal aliens. If he’s right, that would represent between 11 percent and 15 percent of all murders in the U.S.
In one study of a sample 55,000 illegal immigrants serving prison sentences in the U.S., it was discovered that they are responsible for over 400,000 arrests and over 700,000 felony crimes.
According to Heather McDonald of the Manhattan Institute, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.
